Page 67 of The Lost Hours
I went back to work, blinking my tired eyes and sighing in frustration when I realized we only had two more hours until closing. My first perusal of the death register had yielded nothing unusual, only the death information for the fathers of both Lillian and Annabelle. I could find nothing for either Josie or Freddie, although I did find the death register for their mother, Justine.
The only alternative that I could think of was to guess Freddie’s birth dates and start flipping through the birth registers in the hope that my guess had been accurate.
It was nearly four thirty when I stopped, my finger held in midair over a page of scrawled names of the dead. I’d been focused on the death register of a woman with five different names, either given to her at birth or she’d been married multiple times, when it had occurred to me that we might know exactly where to look for Josie and Freddie, after all. Quickly, I shoved the book out of the way and pulled out the register containing deaths for the year nineteen eighty-one.
I flipped open the nineteen eighty-one book, the year of Justine’s death—and found her name again, tucked in with the other Ms. In my experience in researching people’s genealogies, unwed mothers tended to use creative license on their children’s birth certificates to either hide the identity of the biological father, or protect their family name from scandal by using their middle or even their mother’s maiden name as a last name for their illegitimate children. Still keeping the name in the family, but not close enough to warrant scrutiny.
I scanned the entry again. Justine’s middle name had been Marie, but her mother’s maiden name was Latrobe. Looking around to make sure no one was watching, I pulled out my forbidden cell phone and sent a text to Tucker. “Check Latrobe for last name.” Glancing at my watch again, I quickly skipped to the book containing the year of Josie’s birth, nineteen eighteen, and flipped to the Ls.
A member of the staff approached the table. “The library will be closing in fifteen minutes. You may leave the books on the table, but you’ll need to start finishing up now.” Her smile indicated that we would be locked inside the frigid library with the documents if we dared to linger any longer than the five o’clock closing.
I nodded, then quickly went back to the book again, looking for the last name of Latrobe. I knew the information would still be here after we’d left, but I’d have to wait two more days before the library reopened the following Tuesday. Despite all of my foot dragging up to this point, I didn’t think my patience could take having to wait even one more hour.
I felt nearly weak with relief when I found what I’d been searching for. The same staff member appeared again in the reading room doorway. “We’re closing. It’s time to leave.”
I stood as I scanned the entry quickly, not having time to take notes on my laptop, and instead committed the information to memory. I stopped, forgetting to breathe for a moment as I recognized a familiar name.
“My friend is downstairs,” I explained. “I’ll just go get him and we’ll leave together.” Without waiting for an answer, I headed down the stairs.
Tucker stood as we entered and smiled. “All done? If not, we can come back on Tuesday if we need to.”
I stared at him dumbly, irrationally thinking that the overhead lights that were now being shut off should be shining with brighter intensity or at least flashing on and off to illustrate my discovery.
With Tucker taking hold of my elbow, we were escorted out by two staff members and a security guard, who made a great show of jangling keys and locking the door behind us. I stopped on the front step, unable to go any farther without sharing my newfound knowledge.
I faced Tucker, my hands grasping his upper arms. “Leonard O’Hare was Josie and Freddie’s father. Being a doctor, he must have filled out and filed the birth certificates himself so nobody would know. Josie and Freddie were Annabelle’s half brother and half sister.”
He raised both eyebrows, then tugged on my arm. “Let’s keep walking. I think I found something, too, and I don’t want anybody else knowing.”
I walked with him down the steps, impatiently following him as he led us into Forsyth Park, finally stopping at a bench near the fountain. Looking around us, he said, “Sit down.”
I did and waited for him to join me. We must have been walking relatively fast because I was a little out of breath, but was surprised to find that my knee wasn’t hurting me as much as it should have been. I wondered if the exercises Emily was forcing me to do might actually have been doing some good.
“Do you think Lillian knew about Josie and Freddie’s father?” he asked.
“No, I’m pretty sure she didn’t. I guess we’re going to have to tell her.” I squinted at him in the bright sunlight. “You said you found something, too.”
He waited for a moment before reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a yellowed newspaper clipping.
“You stole something from the archives!” My outrage raised my voice enough to have several passersby glance in our direction.
“Shh,”he said. “I only borrowed it. I promise to be there at ten o’clock sharp Tuesday morning to put it back where I found it. But there was too much information for me to memorize and not enough time to jot it down, so I borrowed it.”
“If they find out, they’ll never let me back in.” I tried not to let my curiosity overtake my indignation, but I failed. “So what is it?”
“Well, when I got your text, I knew immediately where to go. A good friend of mine in med school was a Latrobe, so I guess when I first saw the name on a folder, I went through the whole thing to see if it might be the same family. It wasn’t, but the name and the folder I’d pulled it from sort of stuck with me.” He handed the clipping to me, a look of smug satisfaction on his face. “This was one of the items in the folder. It must have been filed there by accident because of the last name.”
I smiled, my guilt lessened somewhat by the promise of discovering something new. Taking the clipping, I held my breath and began to read. It was an obituary for Justine Marie Montet, who’d died on May twenty-fifth, nineteen eighty-one, interred at Laurel Grove Cemetery in Savannah. Predeceased by her son, Frederick Latrobe, and daughter, Josephine Montet of New York City and survived by granddaughter Alicia Montet Jones, of Tattnall Street, Savannah.
I looked up at Tucker. “Josie had a daughter, who lived in Savannah and might still be here.” I looked back again for the street, ready to start walking there now.
“Am I forgiven then? Because if I am, I have something else, too.”
My indignation all but forgotten, I held out my hand. “Show me.”
From under his shirt he produced what looked to be a photocopy of an official document. At least he hadn’t folded it up to fit in his back pocket. He handed it to me. “This was clipped to Justine’s obituary.”
It was a copy of Freddie’s death certificate. I glanced at the birth and death dates to see if they corresponded with what we knew about Freddie, then let my gaze roam over the document to see if I could find whatever it was that had made Tucker borrow it.
